[FM Discuss] 2nd Mailing List: User Help, TuxPaint, & Outreach Manual..

[adam hyde]

hey Austin,

On Fri, 2009-05-29 at 15:16 -0500, Austin Martin wrote:
> Hey everyone,
> 
> Ok, I feel like if I branched out these messages there wouldn't be
> much content so I thought I would put them all in one, feel free to
> cut them out if you feel appropriate. (Also I would rather not spam
> everyone with 3 when they can be dealt with in one..)
> 

nono, email away. if you get too noisy someone will say ;)

> 2nd Mailing List - User Help
> - Right now we have a single mailing list for all FLOSS Manuals needs,
> I think it is good that a lot of the notices are then centralized.
> However I thought of the idea (maybe not the first person), of a Help
> mailing list to where we can direct people to contact us on a wide
> arrange of software for help. I myself have an arrange of about 7
> different FLOSS apps that I use frequently and could provide good help
> with. Obviously I think this would only be a small supplement to the
> manuals component, but what I think would be nice is if someone asks a
> question about a particular software. Or we start getting substantial
> amounts of the same question we could implement some of the questions
> into the manuals. Also, the same mailing list (name changed a bit
> though), could be a way to provide suggestions of manuals and other
> things.

i think this is an interesting idea. so far the philosophy for new
initiatives like this is really to not move until there is a
demonstrated need. we only just recently (for example) started really
using the FLOSS Manuals irc channel for discussions because there now
seems to be enough people wanting to use it. implementing that before we
had enough interest would have resulted in a silent irc channel which is
kinda sad and unnecessary

i think the same could be said for a interactive help system. i would
prefer that we first get 'readers' to interact with us using email and
the talk pages. so far this has been very quiet - i would say that its
actually something of a failure so far - we have many people reading the
manuals and downloading them, but we haven't yet had much input from
readers

so, it would be nice perhaps to think of how we could improve the
existing systems before embarking on a completely new service. then once
we get reader interaction we could see where that road follows and it
might follow to exactly what you suggest....but one step at a time i
think


> 
> TuxPaint Manual
> - Mainly just a few questions on this:
> -- What exactly is the process for making a new manual?

if you want to write a manual you write to me or anne gentle (there are
a few others that can create manuals too) or just to the list and ask
for the manual to be created...if its about free software, or a topic
closely related to it, then the manual will be created

> --- I assume I just click "Create New Manual" on the sidebar, and then
> I assume I change the "Name of new web:" to TuxPaint and then what
> else exactly do I need to change before I hit "Create New Web"?


> -- Has anyone here used TuxPaint before? 
> -- Any suggestions on creating a manual about it?
> -- And do you think the manual should even be made/should I focus
> efforts somewhere else?
> 

i think you are making great inroads on the openoffice manual and i see
you are providing many good edits on other manuals...this is cool and i
hope you will continue :) we can create a tux paint manual for you but
you may wish to consider trying to pull others into a specific manual or
join a existing manual and help develop it. single authored manuals dont
tend to grow very fast and dont get updated often, its better to join
forces with others as much as possible (like you have been doing with
the outreach manual that john started)

> Outreach Manual
> - One question for this:
> -- Is there any current plan for this manual? Or for the chapters?
> 

john curwood might answer this better than i :)

adam


> Austin Martin
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-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
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